Some of the major themes in DBMS research appeared in the computer science literature as early as 50 years ago. The community has had a very productive time over the past 50 years exploring these themes, in the process contributing to a major software industry and creating a large and vibrant research community. I will give a subjective and probably highly biased view of these themes and why they have been so persistent, and speculate on how they might continue to persist in the future. While we will probably continue to be productive over the next 50 years as well, there are reasons for concern going forward. I will close with some speculation on what we might do to deal with this.